Solution Book

RFID AEROSPACE SOLUTIONS

A RAISING REVOLUTION IN AIRCRAFT INDUSTRY

Airplanes are valuable assets and they are always on the move. Keeping them out of the hangar and in the air requires parts and services to be ready and available at precisely the right time and place. Automatic identification, including RFID, redefines operational efficiency by ensuring that parts and services are centrally managed to support your fleet requirements. FLYtag® simplifies airplane operations and ownership with extensive capabilities for engineering and for planning and managing maintenance, material and information. This gives more options in managing airplane fleet. FLYtag® is a flexible turnkey range of solutions focused on enhancing operational performance with tailored choices in support and services.

RFID and other automatic identification technology inspire business transformation improving Aircraft Quality and Safety. Enhancing Operational Processes Operational efficiencies in the airplane supply chain and maintenance operations increase fleet availability and reliability while reducing upfront investment and recurring operational costs. With FLYtag® range, processes and costs of airplane supply chain and maintenance operations are predictable. A Scalable Set of Offerings Tailored to Your Business represents a strategic choice, allowing you to choose the level of support that is right for your business. This allows you to choose the optimum level of supply chain, engineering and maintenance services based on your operational needs.Whether parts, maintenance or engineering services, FLYtag® delivers benefits for every size and type of airline. MAINtag has solutions that maximize efficiency and flexibility for every customer, from startups to established airlines.

Air transport industry is a complex business in which airports, airlines and MRO centers need to coordinate their activities to provide efficient and profitable services. Approved Electronic Identification devices such as FLYtag® can improve aircraft turnover processes and reduce the impact of operational disturbances.

Aerospace parts traceability, including all industries is the most complex supply chains ever built. First, aircraft manufacturers, airlines, tier suppliers, leasing companies, logistics providers need parts traceability throughout their service life to ensure data accuracy and aircraft safety over more than 30 years.

The ATA (Air Transport Association), the trade association for airlines, recently expanded guidelines for component parts tracking in ATA spec 2000, with recommendations for automating part traceability using RFID in Chapter 9. RFID technology provides real-time value chain visibility into the manufacturing plant, and maintenance repair and overhaul including history of parts and aero-systems as aircraft are assembled, inspected, placed in service and maintained over decades. RFID is known as a fundamental enabler to streamline business processes, reduce complex inventory and increase the productivity and quality of business processes. RFID tags on parts are introduced to assist production, logistic, assembly, maintenance and repair processes of aircraft parts.

Applications include line maintenance, data for configuration management, part history tracking, repair shop processes, etc.

THE CHOICE OF RFID, A GOLD STANDARD FOR AEROSPACE

For several years, the aerospace sector has already been using a number of automatic identification technologies for marking of
aircraft parts with a unique identifier for each part. Previously, human-readable nameplates, linear barcodes and also
two-dimensional Data Matrix barcodes have been used. More recently, many organizations have been considering how to
migrate to Radio-Frequency Identification (RFID) for tracking aircraft parts, tools and Ground Support Equipments.

In comparison with name-plates, linear and two-dimensional barcodes, RFID offers a number of significant advantages:

The ability to read a unique ID without line-of-sight (useful if the part is obscured by a panel)

The ability to read a tag without finding its exact location on a part.

The ability to quickly read multiple objects, without needing to scan each one manually.

The possibility to store significant amounts of data – not just a unique ID number.

The possibility to write data updates back to the tag.

The ability to read tags in dirty environments, where optical marks such as barcodes, DataMatrix and nameplates symbols might be obscured. These advantages have led a number of aerospace companies not only to consider RFID as a technology to supplement nameplates and barcodes – but has also triggered a renewed interest in electronic collection and exchange of a larger data set for each part, including the following:
- Unique Identifier for part
- ‘Birth Record’ data – data fields known at the time of manufacture
- Maintenance event data – information about significant removals, installations and exchanges of parts – and the reasons for doing so.
- Information about ‘No Fault Found’ occurrences
- Mechanics’ comments about a part